Toronto Mike'd: The Official Toronto Mike Podcast - Ron Hawkins: Toronto Mike'd #713

Episode Date: August 27, 2020

Mike chats with Ron Hawkins from Lowest of the Low about The Barricade, why his next vote's with a brick, why his music is not for Trump supporters and his new album 246 with the Do Good Assassins.

Welcome to episode 713 of Toronto Mic'd, a weekly podcast about anything and everything. Proudly brought to you by Great Lakes Brewery, a fiercely independent craft brewery who believes in supporting communities, good times and brewing amazing beer. CDN Technologies, your outsourced IT department. Garbage Day, weekly reminders for garbage recycling and yard waste pickup. Visit GarbageDay.com slash Toronto Mike to sign up now. StickerU.com. Create custom stickers, labels, tattoos, and decals for your home and your business. The Keitner Group.

They love helping buyers find their dream home. Text Toronto Mike to 59559. Pumpkins after dark. Save 10% with the promo code TRONOMIKE. And Palma Pasta. Enjoy the taste of fresh homemade Italian pasta and entrees from Palma Pasta in Mississauga and Oakville. I'm Mike. From tronomike.com.

And joining me this week is Ron Hawkins from Lowest of the Low and the Do Good Assassins. Welcome back, Ron. Thank you, Mike. Did you say I did seven? I've done 713 of these.

You've done a good handful. So if anybody wants to go back in time and catch up on what they missed, there's several out there. I mean, there's a few where you and Lawrence came on together. They're great. Shout out to Lawrence Nichols. Good FOTM.

Hope you're doing well. And you were a Zoom guest during this pandemic. We Zoomed it. Yeah. And good to see you. Good to see you as well. In the flesh. I know.

So how many in-person interviews have you done since March 13th, 2020? I've done zero. So how does it feel? Like, is it different? I didn't have to think about it. It is different because, you know, as my daughter says, I try desperately not to use the angle, the zoom angle that she says old people use,

which is too low and sort of looking up at your chin. Right, yes. Apparently that's an old person thing. I didn't know that. Because it's this, I'm pointing now to my laptop, but this camera and you kind of go like that and you go like that and it, yeah, yeah. And it's looking right up your nose. So there's your camera.

Actually, I'm experimenting with a new camera angle and... Is this alienating that I'm wearing sunglasses or is it rock and roll? It looks cool to me. Okay. It looks cool. Let's just talk about the elements for a moment here. So, like the forecast said there's a low chance of thundershowers right now.

But the sky looks okay. But in the event that there's a sudden rainstorm, you've got coverage. Like you've got a big umbrella over you. But I've got no coverage. So I've got two umbrellas like within hand reach to save the gear. Wow. I'm all set.

And the show will go on or you'll just be saving the gear? I like the excitement of playing in all my ear. And oh, by the way, because you're in the backyard, you're going to hear like. I'm getting dental work done while we speak. Chainsaws, I think. There's a chainsaw massacre in the hood and you'll hear lawnmowers. Just ignore all that. We're all just you and I.

Peace and quiet. Yeah, yeah. Well, you know, I was formerly a goaltender, so I can block absolutely everything except what I am focusing on. Can you name drop other musicians you played hockey with? Like, I'm always curious who these are. Like, is Dave Bedini one?

I envision, like, a rock and roll circuit. I never played with anybody that I now know in the music industry, but as I go through and tour with people and meet people and stuff like that, I find out not only are there a lot of hockey players that are musicians, indie rock musicians particularly, but there are tons of goaltenders. They all seem to be goaltenders.

Actually, Ron McLean made this point. He said there's some kind of, something about what, the same thing that's in you that makes you want to be a goaltender is sort of, that's part of what makes you want to be a rock star. Like, it's sort of some overlap there in the Venn diagram. Yeah, for sure. I think that makes you want to be a goaltender is sort of that's part of what makes you want to be a rock star like it's sort of there's some overlap there in the Venn diagram a lot of yeah for sure I think that makes sense there's a lot of pressure there's a lot of you're you're the person that it all rides on as my mom would say that you know it's hard to be a goalie's

mom because you know the forwards and the defense make mistakes but when the goalie makes a mistake it's on the board kind of thing I was was always grateful my, well, I mean, maybe my younger two will be goaltenders, but my teenagers never wanted to play net, and I was always grateful. Like, I feel it would be difficult to watch your kids play hockey if they're the goalie. Like, you're right, the bad goal,

and it's like you'd feel that secondhand, you know. And I mean, like, let's face it, a mom has, in their DNA, they have this sense of, of like helping their child flourish and they can do nothing. They're sitting up there in a straitjacket in the seats and the kid is alone there with the wolves. And I would say also the other crazy thing, I'm going to be very unpopular when I say this,

but I find that the toxic masculinity, by the time it gets to the crease, is gone. And it's like, I would always say that, you know, me and the other goalie would be sitting at the end of the bench in the dressing room talking about, you know, punk rock or art or whatever. And all the other guys would be like chest bucking and waving their penises around at each other. Well, that's an interesting observation.

Because the last time I played for hockey, I think we're going back about five years, I was on a team. And I distinctly remember like, almost like I was like feeling shame at the conversations that were taking place in that dressing room. Like the things I was hearing and it was like, well, who are these people?

Like it's like Neanderthals or something. There is that. It's one of the things that drove me out of hockey, to be honest with you. Like I was on a, I was on a path where, you know, I,

nobody can ever say that they had a shot, but I had a, you know, I got called up for a Marley's training camp. Oh, that's OHL. What is that? Is that, was that OHL? Was but i had a you know i got called up for a marley's uh training camp uh oh that's ohl what is that is that was that ohl was it i don't know yeah i guess ohl back then everything's changed from yeah but that's still uh that's huge but that's on its way and it's like you're still a million miles from the nhl but you uh but it's you know it's a serious shot at something and um and i've been playing since I was a little kid, but that part of that, that's the whole sort of,

I wouldn't have said toxic, toxic masculinity back then, but it just didn't jive with my, who I was becoming and who I was, which was, you know, into a really deep into politics and really deep into, uh,

music and punk rock and stuff like that. And it was like, I can't, you know, my joke is that I can't, I couldn't imagine crossing the country in a bus with all, with a whole bunch of guys. And so I joined a rock band, right? Which is what I did for the next, but it's a with all, with a whole bunch of guys. And so I joined a rock band,

right? Which is what I did for the next, but it's a different, it was a different bunch of guys. Okay. So, uh, when,

when we were chatting it up on the Periscope before I pressed record on the podcast, uh, I mentioned that Perry Lefkoe, uh, was tweeting at me about, uh, your song peace and quiet,

which of course is, was played at leaf games. Uh, and Tim Thompson put together an amazing montage video. Uh, people have probably seen it, but it's, it's like the perfect song,

even though you didn't write it about hockey, it's the perfect song and the perfect video montage by boundless on Twitter. And, uh, I just mentioned that, you know, Perry Lefkoe's brother is Elliot Lefkoe. So I was wondering just off the top,

uh, what role did Elliot Lefkoe, the concert promoter, whater what role did he play in uh ron hawkins's rock star career well i mean i don't want to blame him for where i am now but let's talk about when when i started i mean like the thing with him is he's a part of a village of people you know you can throw bookie in there and uh the edge early on yvonne matzah who was a promoter in toronto uh just across the board, Jack Ross at APA, stuff like that. So all these people early on, you know, I mean,

the people who do their job like that well is that they see something in you. It's not coming out of you right now. They're like, yeah, they're not there right now, but I see a kernel in there that could prove to be good. And they nurture it, right? So Elliot was very much one of those people. He was one of us, and he was on the street, and he booked from his heart. And he gave my old band, Popular Front, lots of cracks at things

that we either made him proud or didn't make him proud. And then that sort of led to he was helping in the very early parts of Lowest of the Low. And then we made a, back when C, he was helping in the very early parts of lowest of the low. And then, you know, we, we made a, back when CBC did this series called ear to the ground. Oh yeah.

I remember ear to the ground. Yeah. So they, our episode of ear to the ground, most of the ear to the grounds were like, you know, a talking head sort of rag rolled background. And we said,

you know, we don't want to do that. We want to make up a thing. We want to make up a story where we've said that we're bigger than I've, I've shot my mouth off and said that we're bigger than Bruno Jerusey. And that Canada was suddenly, you know, I'm not saying we're better than I've, I've shot my mouth off and said that we're bigger than Bruno Jerusy. And that Canada was suddenly, you know, I'm not saying we're better than him,

you know, I'm greater than him, you know, that's very funny. So we did this press conference and shot that. And then we, we just, and this was all on tour where we're like,

we're just spitballing. It was like, this is never going to happen because you know, how much will it cost them to do? And can we get David Suzuki? Can we get Doug Gilmore? Anyway, we got all these people and we almost had,

um, Eugene Levy as well as Bobby Bittman we were going to have him on as Bobby Bittman the old SCTV character of course and this is of course

this is when Bruno Gerusi was alive right he hadn't passed yet I was more of a relic guy I thought relic oh of course

okay yeah but it was part of that whole you know we just wanted to riff on that John Lennon thing and Elliot Licko

was in our... He was like, I don't want to deal with them. They're difficult. Get them out of here. He was giving this whole spiel about how impossible we were to work with. That was a total blast. Is that on YouTube anywhere? You can find the episodes. They're in bits.

It's like six parts or something. We got David Suzuki to dump a bunch of garbage all over the beach while he was talking about our band. Just people doing things that they wouldn't do. Right. I always find that funny when people play themselves on something like Curb Your Enthusiasm or something, but they play the...

I think it was Ron Howard would kind of play himself as a jerk or something on The Simpsons or whatever. Michael Cera. Right. I can't remember which movie that was. Well, that's... The Seth Rogen. I know what you're saying.

Death. It's got a weird title know what you're saying. Death. It's got a weird title, but you're right. You get like, Satan kills him or something. Anyway, I know what you're talking about. The End of the World or something? I don't know anymore what that movie's called, but it was enjoyable. But...

Yeah, so Elliot Lefkoe, massive, massive influence too. I mean, he was just this cool guy. Cool guy to talk to, cool guy to be around, you know? Now, I have a question for you, because yesterday, Jay Ferguson from Sloan was here, and just at the very end as i started playing i played rosie and

gray at the end of the show as i do sometimes and uh and i asked jay like did you ever share a stage did sloan ever share a stage with lois of the low and he wants me to ask you i think he mentioned elliot lefkoe too i think he said think it was, he talks about a 1995 edge thing. He thinks at the Molson amphitheater. Did you, to your, in your recollection, did you ever share a stage of Sloan?

Yeah. I mean, we had, we have an infamous stage sharing when we were, when we were early, early, I'm going to say it was 91 or something when we were still full of piss and vinegar and,

and did not give a shit. There was a bill that was our friends in a band called Big Circus and then Lowest to the Low and then Sloan. And it was clearly Sloan's gig. They were huge and we had our following, but we weren't a big band or anything. And then my friend Larry had super long hair down to his waist or something. And he said, hey, he was one of these kind of guys. We were kind of partners in crime. And he said, you know what would be hilarious?

If you come up during our set and shave my head. And so I jumped up on stage during their set and I gave them a Mr. T haircut. Oh my God, yeah, Mohawk. Live, like, I guess it's a Mandinka, right? So it's got the Mohawk, but it's also got stuff over here. So we did that whole thing, and of course, you know, we were too self-involved and too punk rock to give a shit

and left the hair all over the stage. And then somebody from Sloan, I can't even remember. It probably wasn't Jay because I think he would have remembered this and been possibly had PTSD about it. But came into our dressing room and said, hey, you guys, you got to clean that shit up on the stage. You know, get that stuff off the stage. Right. And we, you know, there was just like 14 middle fingers went up. You guys, you know.

And so that was the inauspicious beginning of us, you know, knowing Sloan. Since then, I think we did do an Edge Fest, maybe it was he's talking about. Yeah, see, because coincidentally, I just did an episode where we went down Molson Park and Barrie Concert Memory Lane. Like this was the focus of the episode.

And a lot of Edge Fests were there, but this Edge Fest, like this 95 Edge Fest, he thinks it was Molson Amphitheatre. Well, it wouldn't have been 95 because Lowest Low was done in November of 94, but it might have been 94. Okay. Or it might not have happened.

And did you ever, like, did you ever play Molson Park in Barrie? No. Did not. I feel like Molson Park was coming, am I wrong, or it was kind of coming to an end in the early 90s?

No, I was at the last Bash and Barry which was 03, 2003. So I just, I guess. I just,

okay, so low breaks up but then, okay, so maybe that. I feel like, did Mariposa and stuff like that

used to happen out there? Yeah. Because I went to a thousand of those. Okay, yes. Because the big things were,

and then the Tragically Hip had another roadside attraction I think and I think there were a lot of Canada Day Okay, yes. Billy Bragg. Because the big things were, and then the Tragically Hip had another roadside attraction, I think. And I think there were a lot of Canada Day festivals brought to you by CFNY. Like a lot of those. And like from 87 on or something. I do find it surprising that you didn't play one of those.

Yeah, it's a weird black hole in my career. Oh my goodness. Exclusive content. I like it. So much I want to cover with you, but one that's time sensitive. And what I mean is, I think it's happening tonight.

So, previous guest on this program is Farley Flex. Used to manage Maestro Fresh West, you know. You know that. Okay. I can't teach you anything.

But Farley is helping. Please, this is what I find exciting. Is it true that you and Stephen Stanley are playing together tonight? That is true. That is 100% true. That is 100% true.

It's 120% true. We're playing a drive-in show at Ontario Place and Elvira Kurt is opening that show. Oh, she's funny. And then we're playing and then they're going to screen Metric's Dream So Real live concert film. So this is one of those things. Since the beginning of the pandemic,

Lois Le's been being offered drive-in shows and stuff like that and i up till now i've been very like oh really i haven't like i have to say there have been lots of kind of you know attempts to make a live thing happen uh and you know and i and i absolutely applaud people's outside the box thinking and like let's see how we can make this happen but a lot of it uh determined is determined by the fact that it's impossible to get that uh circular uh feedback loop you know if the energy you put out the audience puts back right and i i just originally thought like well so what are they're in their cars and are they honking are they honking at us yeah i think so i think yeah i'll be able to tell you i'll be able to email you tomorrow and tell

you what they do but uh so And I've seen one of them. I can't remember which country performer did it. And it was like he was literally doing jumping jacks to try and get some energy happening. I've seen some stand-up comedy done. Oh, I don't even, and that's even worse to me. It's like, how do you do stand-up comedy? I've seen a couple of Zoom ones too,

where it's like, there's nothing coming back. It's just, they drop a punchline. I'm going to, I mean, this is a good time to introduce it, that I've been watching you perform on Tuesday nights via Facebook, and you seem... I'm a consummate professional. Even under the worst circumstances. But there's no...

Forget the fact that you... At least if you're at the drive-in, they're going to honk at you or something, or maybe open their windows and yell or something like that. But when you're doing your... And I don or something, or maybe open their windows and yell or something like that. But when you're, when you're doing your, and I don't know, are you doing it?

You're doing it. I guess you're live streaming on Facebook and every Tuesday night. So I'm wearing a t-shirt by the way. Tommy Douglas Tuesdays. Right. So, so, okay. So tonight I don't want to like confuse people.

So tonight you and Steven Stanley together, which is, which is exciting. Even though I, you have been kind of appearing on stage together recently. It's not as exciting as it might have been. Only once. We've only done one appearance.

And that was sort of, I don't want to say an accident. We knew it was going to happen. But I was opening for The Watchmen, and it was just going to be me opening. And then Steve and I were kind of, you know, I don't want to say like burying hatchets because it wasn't even really like that. It's just we hadn't talked for a very long time since he left the band. And I think just before his band went to Ireland, they went for a tour. David and I sent out a, hey, have a great tour.

You know, his guitar neck snapped on the way on the plane. So we were kind of commiserating with him about that. And then it just sort of opened up a dialogue a bit. And so when that Watchmen show came up I just said to Steve hey you want to come up and play three or four songs Nigel Tufnel it you know and so he and he was into that so he did and we didn't tell anybody so you know there's a couple of fans of ours that come to everything have been there forever and one of the greatest joys of my life was to see Mike McCann his face just sort of light up and his jaw I thought thought, wow, he, it's almost like he has a prehensile jaw, like a boa constrictor.

Like I couldn't believe how much his jaw had dropped just to see it. So, you know, and Steve and I have to kind of laugh because I said, sometimes I feel like it means more to other people that the two of us talk than it necessarily does to each other. It seems very, I've known him for so long that it seems very easy the way we do this, you know? But anyway, that's all to say. But it's great that you're going to do this together tonight.

And I guess you don't know what to expect because you've never done it before, but you're going to email me tomorrow and tell me everything. That's exactly true. And so it'll be a combination of, you know, Steve and I haven't played an entire set together for a long time, so there'll be that wonderful, you know, Easter egg. And then, yeah, the drive-in thing is a total mystery to me.

So we'll see. Yeah, Toronto Shines drive-in thing is a total mystery to me. So we'll see. Yeah, Toronto Shines, I think, is the... Toronto Shines. So is that like people just Google Toronto Shines and they buy a ticket, basically, if they want to? They do. And then they drive to Ontario Place. And I think the way it works...

Can you bike there? Like, do I have to have a car? I think you probably do. I'm not sure. I mean, if you have a little... If you have a phone, I guess you have a phone, so you could probably... I feel like that's a violation of my rights as a citizen of this great country.

I feel I should be allowed to attend without a car. Well, of course. Of course. I agree with you. I'm just trying to cause some trouble here, Ron. Agitating. Agitating, yeah. Okay, let's talk about the Tommy Douglas Tuesdays, and then I want to talk about agitation pop, actually, in one song in particular.

But tell us everything you can now about these Tuesday nights. I watched, and they're great. I think you went through a run on Tuesday nights where you try not to play the same song twice. How long are you able to go? There's no try, only do. There's do or do not. So here's the deal. So the pandemic hit, Only do. Right. There's do or do not.

So I, yeah, so here's the deal. So the pandemic hit and it was like, oh, suddenly we have zero gigs. All our gigs are pulled. We don't feel comfortable playing in rooms with people. So I started seeing people doing live streams and I dragged my feet for maybe three weeks because I, anytime I tried to dry run, it sounded like crap. And I was like, I just thought like the bandwidth on Facebook or something, it's just like it was jittery. Like compressing it maybe?

Sort of like there's something called comb filtering. I imagine you might know about that from doing your show, which is just like I guess the sound waves start to cancel each other out a little bit. And there's this weird, people would just know it as a weird hollow sound. And I got it to a point where my voice sounded fine, but my guitar sounded super weird and wavery and hollow and i thought well i can't do it like this i don't want to do it like this it will be no good and after about three weeks i had knocked some of the bugs out of it i brought a different interface in and and also sort of it settled in on me like

people needing to see uh having a place to go and and having our community be together and see something and be part of something is more important than the comb filtering that my audio brain is. We're in a pandemic here, Ron. We can't be perfectionists here. Yeah. So then I started it and then it was nice because the first couple, two, three of them, I got such an incredible flood of warmth and of, first of all, I don't monetize it. Like I just wanted to do it as a, as a gesture.

Right. This is a free thing. Like you just follow Ron Hawkins on Facebook since April. Yeah. And, uh, but so the, one of the,

one of the most touching things was everybody was bending over backwards to try and give me money. You know, they were trying to like, where can we send money? Where can we, there should be a tip jar. And I was saying,

you know, it's not for me, it's not about that. But I, but I realized, Hey, there's a lot of people who need, like at the time there was a,

a PPE drives and stuff like that. So I started holding up these handmade cardboard signs and saying, you know, Hey, there's a lot of people who need, like at the time there was PPE drives and stuff like that. So I started holding up these handmade cardboard signs and saying, you know, hey, if you, I know some of you wanted to give me money, send it here instead, right? Then there was Black Lives Matter stuff. There was things, there's a community policing unit in Winnipeg called the Bear Clan Patrol. And so every week I was finding people who need money for my audience is so awesome to send that money to and so that became the handmade cardboard signs and I have my daughter has a little sound effects machine that has you know applause on it and different things so I started incorporating that and I found that it became like a variety show of its own right you know I could

pump my other friends gigs and you know one one catch I get into with Facebook is that I have an intermission band, an opening act, an intermission band. So I play one song, a vinyl at the beginning and one song in an intermission. Sometimes Facebook says, I'm not sure you have the right to play those songs. Right. So they'll mute that stuff. And it's like, I thought, well, I should, maybe I should shut that down, but I'm not monetizing it in any way. And people love that aspect of it. So I thought, well, I'll just take the heat for it now and see what happens. And, but so it's just become that thing. And then, so yeah, then I, then I thought, well, I'll just take the heat for it now and see what happens. But so it's just become that thing.

And then, so yeah, then I decided, hey, I think I'm going to try and play every song in my catalog. And that became 11 days of 19 songs a night with no repeats. So how many songs in the catalog? Because you're prolific, my friend. Yeah, I think it was 220 or something, or 215. And let me try to, I'm going to try to do this but with that you see you mentioned popular front there's a lowest of the low there's lowest of the right there well there's solo ron hawkins there's but there's uh there's also rusty oh yeah rusty nails do good

assassins am i missing anything uh i think that's it or that's the songs I drew from anyway. And the new release, which is like so new, it might not even be out yet, but tomorrow. Wow. This is good timing. Okay.

So you got the Stephen Stanley drive-in theater performance tonight. And then tomorrow you drop the new good, do good assassins. And we're going to, well, I mean, you got a guitar at some point we'll talk about, like,

I don't want to play something that you want to play. Like if you want to do it, but we'll get to that. Cause I want to go back to the most recent, most of the low album and it's called Agitpop. And it's excellent. Have you heard that? It's a very good album. Have I heard the album?

Have you heard the album? Yeah. I've heard it a lot. I was at, I mean, you invited me to the, what's that called when you play it for the first time for like. Like a listening party? Listening party. Yeah. And I was so honored to be there.

And it sounded great. And then I was listening to you talk about each song. And I said, this is amazing. Like we should be recording this. And I said, oh, I know. I'll ask Ron to come back and do that again. And you and Lawrence came over and we played like every song and talked about each song, which was like completely amazing. But there's one song.

So firstly, we're on the heels of yesterday, just yesterday. The NBA players called a I call it a wildcat strike. I think that's the proper. I've been seeing boycott, but I feel like that's a wildcat strike. Like when the labor decides we're not doing this and they don't have you know, they don't go through the union or whatever. But the NBA players didn't play last night. the labor decides we're not doing this and they don't have, you know, they don't go through the union or whatever, but, the NBA players didn't play last night. They were protesting the attempted murder of,

uh, Jacob Blake. He was a black man. And, uh, this is in Wisconsin on Sunday night by police. So, uh,

this all summer, I've been thinking about black lives matter. You mentioned you've been raising funds in your, uh, Tuesday, uh, Tommy Douglas Tuesdays. Is that the official name?

That is the official name. And we're called Tom Rads. Tom Rads, yeah. So I have FOTMs, you have Tom Rads. I like that. Okay. So in the spirit of Black Lives Matter and the protests that have been happening since the murder of George Floyd, I want to ask you to hopefully in great detail talk to me about the song on agitpop that doesn't leave my

head these days uh the barricade now i could play it now i so should i maybe i should play a bit of it and then we could talk about it okay yeah it's my show right rowan i can you can do what you want you do what you want on tuesday nights and i'm gonna do what i want here on this show so let me see i gotta load it up so here's a little bit of, well, constrain Well, I'll meet you on the barricade In the cool, defiant rain I want you and your brothers Held on to your mothers

Your story on a written page Where they read you the rules And they sent you to school But she paid for the bars on your cage And you played a poison violin In a symphony of rage And that's the time he traded that fucker in for a place

on the barricade In or out Trouble Shots The second's the jury The minute's the judge, the minute's the judge In the hour of the barricade Your green eyes and your battle cries

Are the sweetest warning, sir But the only ring can dismantle this thing is the sound of a siren heard by the children of apostasy who will rescue this wretched world. And join their hands like a fairy king, like an insolent fist from the purse Stay or go

Now or no The week is the hangman The month is the rule In the year the barricade Some vote with their heads And some vote with their hearts And some vote with the end of their dicks You can vote with a ballot

You can vote with your wallet. But it's always a vote for the pricks. So let me tell you this for free. My next vote's with a brick. Don't vote somewhere

behind the barricade. Beyond the lies and the rhetoric. If I see you on the barricade beyond the lies and the rhetoric if I see you on the barricade Ron, my next vote's with a brick. That's the lyric. Oh, I like the whole song

actually. It's a rebel rousing song. Like I want to just go fuck shit up when I hear this song like for good cause and for the right reasons. But my wife,

I wonder if she's just like a sounding board. Like I have these conversations but usually it's just me talking to myself out loud and she's kind of listening along or whatever. But so we have a lot of talks about the protests and how do you evoke real change.

So that's a lot of me talking. I want to hear you talking. So remind us what the barricade is about and talk to me about what that means exactly to you. My next votes with a brick. Well, it would be the song itself is kind of a, I'm trying to distill 40 years of my thought and activity in politics into a song. And originally, so quickly, the backstory is that originally I wrote it and I was singing it, you know,

very well aware that it's kind of like a broad, an early Dylan kind of broadside. And I was singing it with a Dylan kind of accent and I made a demo, you know, for fun. And my initial intention was, I thought, Hey, I'm going to start a website that's called the Lost Dylan Protest Project. And I would upload this song and I would then challenge anybody else. It's like, you know, this is a time we don't have protest songs anymore, or we don't have as many as we used to have, and we really need them. So, and just to kind of poke people and you know and say hey maybe bob will write one this is i hear that he won't because apparently he's i've been told and i don't know if this is true that he's sliding sort of republican and he's got a lot of money and i don't know if that's so disappointing but bob's not going to write it so like let's us write it so then we you know some

time had passed and i and i just you know i've had a busy life and doing a bunch of other things and that website never got built. So it came up time to make Agitpop and it wasn't called Agitpop yet, but the collection of songs were going in that direction, very sort of angry and political. And, and then I thought, oh yeah, this one. And I sent out the demo to the band just to say, hey, there's this song too. And forgetting that I had done it in a Dylan style. Everybody came back like, yeah, that's a great song. What the hell are you doing? Why are you singing like that? Is it like an Oakey accent? Yeah. The way he rolls is everything and sort of talk sings everything. I was like, okay,

don't get off track here. It doesn't matter how I sing it. I'll sing it like me, but should we do this tune? Everybody was super into it. And then that, that let my next votes with a brick was a, was a bit of a contentious line for some people in the band. And for our producer, David,

David Bottrell, who said, you know, they felt a little uncomfortable, I think with the idea of the violence that it, it sort of implies. And I said, well,

you know, first off, I think, you know, and also maybe I think, you know, and also maybe the line, you know, it's always a vote for the pricks. Right. And so I feel sort of a little bit vindicated on that, given that, you know, the cycle that's coming up in the United States, your choices are Joe Biden and Donald Trump. And to me, it's like, so you, so the choice to me is clear, but it's not satisfying in any way because you've got, you know, I know that the Republicans want to paint him as a radical leftist Joe, Joe Biden, but he is about as, you know, I mean, I don't see how he's different than a

Republican and he's got a horrible track record on war and he's got a horrible track record on criminal justice and stuff like that. So you're stuck in any, and you know, he's been charged, I believe he's been charged with sexual assault or he's, I don't think he's been charged. I think there's allegations. There's allegations. Yes. And he smells a lot of hair which is apparently you know he's creepy so you know he's guilty of being creepy that's for sure kamala harris apparently if you know certain circles you'll find that she her her track record in california is not great on on uh criminal justice right so you're just here you are you're stuck in this position of choosing between these two people who are not in the least in any way representing what's going on in the street, right?

So that's the frustration I find with sort of liberal democracy is that, and even social Democrats tend to, you know, like we have the NDP and stuff like that, they tend to, when push comes to shove, back with, you know, they back the bosses and they, you know, they strike break and they do everything, you know, or labor in England, you know, they're not truly people's parties, you know. So that frustrates me. Black Lives Matter, you know, the murder of George Floyd. And we have months of talk about defunding the police and cameras showing police violence. And, you know, some officers getting charged and some officers getting, you know, fired and stuff like that. And then what happens in Wisconsin happens. And, you know, so we're just like, so nothing is changing. Nothing is changing on the ground, no matter how much people talk about. like so what nothing is changing nothing is changing on the ground no matter how much people talk about and you know and even last night at the rnc you have you have them trying to

act as if there's no such thing as systemic racism in the united states everything's fine nothing to see here so here's where we are right um few bad cops and you know rioters and you know rioters are just as bad as murderous cops and it's like i i don't believe all that stuff and it's like so my next votes with a brick is like at some point we need to organize to create an alternative that represents the people and represents the vast majority of people in a just way and the implication of that violence is to me is like if you if you take anything right down to tommy tuesdays you know tommy douglas and socialized medicine in Canada, labor unions, most of those things were either got through violence or were gotten through the threat of violence or the implication of violence.

That there's enough of us out here, if you don't come to the table and talk about these things, we're going to burn your police precinct down. And I think that's valuable. That anger is an energy and it's valuable. Do peaceful protests work? Well, I think the empirical evidence is no. I'm all for peaceful protests and I believe that certainly there's a place for peaceful protests and it's important and it's valuable. But I don't think it's the thing that makes empires or colonialists hand over the keys. They don't do it because they suddenly are enlightened

and go, oh, you know what, you're right. Okay, but Ron, because you write that song and you rile up me, okay? I'm a guy in his mid-40s with four kids, okay? I get riled up. I'm in the protest with the brick and I'm throwing it through a bank window or something downtown, okay?

Right. Then I'm in jail. It's a sacrifice, but it's, like, I guess I'm, what is the call to arms? Like, what is the call to action for us Tomlads who want to see real change? Showing up with a brick is not, you know, is not the answer. So you're not telling us all to grab a brick,

because remember that WKRP episode when Dr. Johnny Fever said, take your, there was a garbage strike in Cincinnati, and and he said take your garbage and dump it at city hall and people did it and then he couldn't go on the air again because he realized the power of his words right this is an episode i remember from my youth so it's like all of us tom rads we grab a brick i'm sure i could find one here in the backyard i you know i joined the protest and i heave it into the window of the bank or whatever. But you also know, Michael, that I'm an artist, right? So it's a metaphor.

And the metaphor is exactly that, that what's happening in the streets right now, and whether it be burning police precincts or whether it just be massive amounts of people peacefully protesting in the streets, there's an implication there for the ruling class that there is a critical mass that has been hit. I thought the critical mass had been hit with the murder of George Floyd, and we would hope it is, and that these vapor trails would continue and that the thing would just build

and that there would be a point where there's an opportunity here for peaceful transition into a better future because we've shown you that we are multitudes. But, you know, basically I guess what it is is we can do this the easy way or we can do this the hard way. So the protests never did stop. It's just the news stopped covering it. Like it was, you know, there was a couple of weeks there where, you know, at night you'd literally be watching live footage from uh protests in various american cities etc and at some point uh the news moved on to other things so if you know consumers of

mainstream media news uh probably don't know there's any protests going on now but then that this is why i was so i was so choked up with pride yesterday when i read that like the bucks weren't going to take the court for their game five of the first round. I'm like, okay, now it's back in the news cycle. Now people are going to be talking about it again. It never went away on the streets, but it went

away in the press, and now it's back. And just I guess I'm here chatting with, you're an artist, but I value your opinion on all this, and I'm curious like, I guess I'm here chatting with, uh, you're an artist, uh, but I value your opinion on all this. And I'm curious, like, uh,

I guess what can we do? Like we can donate money to black lives matter, uh, causes. Like, what can we, we do we, do we,

should we be protesting here in Toronto? Like what should we be, what action can somebody right now listening to us, what can we do to make a difference? Uh, well, I'm a person who believes, you know, as the first part of that last verse is, you know,

you can vote with the ballot, you can vote with your wallet, right? Is that there are countless ways that we can be, I don't really like the word ally because it sounds like it's not truly our job and we're just kind of fellow travelers. But I mean, you know, there's a thousand ways in which we can be active in our lives in a positive political way. I think the first step is that we have to realize that we are connected in terms of like, and in the world over and even in the richest countries in the world, you know, the people who hold the power and people who hold almost all of the wealth are in a very, very, very small minority. That minority is getting smaller due to things like neoliberalism and all of these agendas where they're going

around the world, finding new markets, sucking up more money. So the masses are growing. And I think the day when everybody realizes that your enemy is not an immigrant, your enemy is not a person with a different skin color, your enemy is not somebody from necessarily from a different class. Your enemy are the people from necessarily from a different class. Your enemy are the people who hold these purse strings and these puppet strings and are running this society and are lying to you and keeping you divided. And what I loved about, what I loved about seeing all those people in the streets is how the demographic was multicultural. It was, you know, varying ages, you know, it was a great swath of real humans in the

street. It wasn't just, you know, one socialist group leading their cadres or one, you know, we used to joke back when I was in the, working with the far left and stuff like that, there would be, there would be literally certain groups that had, you know, three people and two of them had gone to get coffee. So one guy was holding a sign and we'd walk by and go, Hey, if you had one more member, you could hold up your sign, know so there's there's a lot of sectarianism in the left and it's like we need to get to that point where we realize we that we should hold these things in common i've had this conversation with americans a lot because we go down and play buffalo and fans of ours at least even if they think i'm a wingnut um they respect

me enough to have a conversation. Right. Or maybe they just think it's cool to talk to a rock musician about politics. But, you know, after the gigs at bars and stuff like that, and I've had these conversations about, you know, say what you will, but my idea is boiled down to like the natural resources,

the natural wealth of a society should be held in kind for everybody. And, you know, I don't necessarily agree with this, but it's like there are ways to do. And, you know, I, I don't necessarily agree with this, but it's like, there are ways to do things like, you know, after that, after a certain basic, uh, uh, income for everybody and a certain level of prosperity for everyone. If you want to design a lightsaber app and make a million dollars because people were going to want to have that lightsaber app, then go for it. But it's not going to be something that controls someone's value of living, you know?

Okay, so, because you identify, correct me if I'm wrong here, you identify as a socialist. Yeah. Okay, so, does that surmise... That's the polite way to... Okay, well, you use your words then, because... Yeah, I mean, socialism would be what I,

if I had to say what I believe in as a way to move forward economically and politically. I mean, the way to get there, I recognize historically, has been socialism has been easy to neutralize in a lot of countries, you know? Because it's friendlier than other forms. Why? Help me, why? I mean, I guess it's because of America. But why is that word, why has it become such a dirty word?

Like when, you know, and particularly, I guess this is, I'm not sure if this is as true in Canada, although in some circles it might be. But socialists, people are like, oh, he's a socialist. Like somehow that's like, you're crazy. Well, it's a socialist like somehow that's like like you're crazy well it's a it's a political tool that that has a long history in the united states as being a very um easy target because americans are so taught you know i mean it's so ludicrous that when even

i mean forget joe biden when they talk about bernie sanders and they talk about bernie sanders in the same breath that they talk about fidel castro Venezuela, it's like, it's just on the face of it ludicrous. And it depends on a public's complete lack of historical knowledge and ability to make any kind of political nuances because Bernie Sanders is not Fidel Castro. You know, and I don't even know why they don't take the opportunity to say, hey, do you have you ever been to Canada? Do you like Canada? Right? You know, and I don't even know why they don't take the opportunity to say, Hey, do you, have you ever been to Canada? Do you like Canada? Right. You know, they have socialized medicine. It's not that scary. Oh yeah. Yeah. Well, most of the world does actually. Uh, right. We also have the metric system, which, uh, I find that scary. I find that scary. I find it nice and easy.

It's like there are hundreds and tens. I can work up these round numbers, uh, nice and easy. The, uh, the last four years years almost four years of uh donald trump uh has that been i'm gonna use dare i say this expression has it been a boon to you as an artist like do you because because it yeah i see what i did there uh it has it been beneficial to you in terms of creating your art because i'm hearing a lot of agit pop and other i'm hearing a lot of great art from you that seems to be coming from you know four years of trump as president of the united states of america yeah i was talking i can't remember who i was talking to about this it was a comedian

and saying you know when somebody like trump comes along you know you look at the daily show or something like that it's like on the one hand as as comedians they're rubbing their hands together and like oh thank god the next four years will be pretty easy as human beings their their heads are dropping with despair because they know that it's a terrible terrible sign for the societies we live in i see it right now you know i've said this before that i see covid and donald trump as possible if we don't if the whole thing doesn't go in the trapper and go to hell, then I think 10 years from now, we may look back and go, they were both a gift in their way because they heightened a sense of

desperation in people to get these jobs done. You know, I've never heard a universal basic income spoken about as much as I have in the last year because of COVID. I would imagine it's a lot of people would go, wow, this is a Jenga. This is a terrible Jenga,

you know, house of COVID, I would imagine. A lot of people would go, wow, this is a Jenga. This is a terrible Jenga, a house of cards, a cruel house of cards that we live in with the name freedom stamped all over it. And we need to make it truly supportive of everyone. So universal basic income could be a thing that comes out of COVID. Who knows? There was a moment, I want you to talk about a moment on the Tommy Douglas Tuesdays when, uh, you literally, uh, you stopped down and basically, uh, informed

if there, you know, I think this is 2020, you were like, if there's any Trump supporters, like on the stream to enjoy the music that they should leave because the music wasn't for them. Uh, am I getting that right? Can you want to get to getting that they should leave because the music wasn't for them uh am i getting that right you want to getting that exactly right and i and i've never done that before i mean i've done we've done it in ways lowest lowest to stop the show and mid you know in mid song and the thing we learned from the class sometimes we would stop a song dead if if we'd seen a guy you know it's always a guy uh acting in some again toxic masculine way or menacing people or usually menacing women. Or if, you know, weirdly,

we get the odd sort of right winger in there, we'd stop the song dead, have that guy thrown out, and then count it back in right back into the song. Good for you. So that's cool. And the thing about stopping the show, the Tommy Douglas show, was, and this will circle back to the barricade,

is that, you know, I even said, you know what, in 2016, if you voted for Donald donald trump i mean i come from a working class family and i understand that in the united states the democrats uh and the neoliberal agenda have screwed everybody around have screwed workers around have left people uh dissatisfied and and understanding that the political structures in america don't talk to, don't talk for them, don't represent them. And so they had this disruptor. And I could see in 2016 the odd person going, you know what, I'm going to roll the dice on this lunatic and see what happens.

Maybe he will drain the swamp. Maybe he'll shake it up. I mean, I think it's misleaded, but I could understand it. Almost like in protest of the establishment. Yeah, 100% in protest of the establishment, like a hundred percent in protest. Fuck up the system. Disrupt the system, maybe. Yeah, exactly. Like we could have this mental case or we could have four more years of exactly what we've always had. And I understand, again, because there's no real choice. Right. So I can understand some people deciding and, you know, and he's telling coal miners their jobs are coming back and stuff like that. So maybe it was it was convincing. But I was saying, you know, but in 2020, if you're still not convinced and you don't see what's wrong here,

then you're a cretin or a fascist. Like you're not somebody who lives in the world I live in. And this music was not written for you. And I don't, I don't see what you see in it. I don't even understand why you would like it. And so to me, that's the, that's what I'm saying in the barricade is this is the time for, you know, stay or or no you know uh shrug or shout it's like you know you have a choice right now this is not let's talk about our opinions this is about which side of the barricade are you on well said man well said uh i find nothing more frustrating and i tried to weed them out of my social media circles etc just because I find it so frustrating. Uh,

those in 2020 who continue to D defend that man and, his leadership and would like another four more years of that. Uh, you're right in 2016, you can buy into maybe bring jobs back, fuck up the system or whatever. But in, in 20,

what were your, what was your terminology there that if you're still supporting Donald Trump, did you say fascist? What were your words? Yeah, I mean, you're definitely a stripe of something. You're either a full-on fascist and can't wait for the full authoritarian program to be rolled out,

or you are such an asshole that you just like the idea, because there are people like this out there that just like the idea, and maybe some of the people that are on your feed or, or wind up on my site are just, they just like to see a squirm. Yeah. I think there's a, there's a segment that likes, they, they would say, oh, we like to

see, uh, the, the academics and elitist squirm, the downtown, the downtown tour. They're out in the 905 and they enjoy watching us kind of uncomfortably squirm that, oh, look, our mayor's Rob Ford. Like how uncomfortable are they now? Yeah. So, I mean, there's, you know, so there's an element of those. But the point is, like, as we're saying, like, you know, that's maybe fine in

general times to tweak people like that. At this point, it's a dangerous thing to do because this is going to go one way or the other in the next couple years down there and up here where we either make huge strides with humanity and there's going to be some kinds of,

uh, there's going to be a reckoning for, for what has been done over the, over the long haul. Do you promise? Well, is that a guarantee? Or the flip side is that there's going to be fascism.

And I mean, I'm, I can fully with a straight face say that I could, I mean, I'm not telling you anything you probably don't already think, but like in the United States, I mean, I'm not telling you anything you probably don't already think, but like in the United States, I mean, if he gets four more years,

I don't see how we're not looking at a fascist state in the United States because I mean, maybe they'll call it something else, but it'll for all intents and purposes be an authoritarian oligarchy. And what about, uh, the fact that you're Canadian, like,

like, does that change anything in this regard? Like are you, cause you're, uh, you're very, you know, like many of us are because it's, we have a lot of friends in the United States and it's a rather influential, large country that we share a very large, long border with, et cetera, et cetera. But we, at the end of the day, we don't get a vote and he's not our president. Right. But, you know, if I can quote Billy Bragg when he was talking about Ronald Reagan is, you know, vote wisely because he's the world's president.

And then they still are. I mean, the point is, like, what the United States does is so effectual the world over. They throw a tariff on this and it, you know, fucks up a whole industry up here. you know, trillions and trillions of dollars of, of, uh, financed military that, you know, is quite willing to go and do stuff everywhere, you know, with some kind of cover guys on it, but basically for oil or for disruption or for, for fresh drinking water of which we have plenty.

Well, there you go. And so we're in Canada, we're a great deal of people who live on reserves and, you know, first nations people don't have fresh drinking water. How is that possible? How is that possible in one of the richest societies? Well, how is that possible in a country like this? Through amnesia and through Is that just racism?

Like systemic? Just systemic racism, yeah. I mean, just hold over from colonial institutions and the fact that again, people aren't organized enough. I mean, because I have to think, I mean, in order to get up in the morning, I have to think that that idea bothers 85% of the people, 95% of the people in this country. But the step from bothering them to making actions that change that,

that's a massive crevice, you know, that has to be overcome. And the good thing about this is that, you know, we are Canada, but we're not alone. Like, we're affected by what's happening in the streets. What's happening in the streets in America is also a tidal wave, and it inspires people all over the world as well. So, you know, when you see, uh, was it Manchester United taking a knee? I was like, wow, that's awesome. You know, that's a long way away. And it's, uh, just to see the world in support of, uh, of Black Lives Matter and, uh, and just, you know, people's movements

like that, you know, they're, they're, that's a tsunami as well. So it's the, it's just depends what tsunami you're going to ride in the next five years, I think. Yeah, and you're right. There's not really a choice, but as I've often said at home, and I'm ranting and raving in the living room, I am of the belief, and hopefully I'm going to be proven correct, that that chair right there, this green chair right here, could beat Donald Trump in this election.

You don't. Yeah. That's my feeling right now. You can play this back, uh, in November and make me look like quite the fool, uh, which would be a shame, but,

uh, well, you'll be in the same boat that, uh, lowest to the lowest end. We, when, uh,

George Bush, George W, uh, was up for a second term. We had a gig that night in Chicago, the, the night that, uh,

John Kerry, right? Was this John? Yeah. Okay. And, uh, so we did our gig that night in chicago the the night that the john carry right was this was coming yeah yeah okay and uh so we did our gig and we're like oh man the gig's early we'll finish the gig we'll go downstairs we'll get a beer and we'll watch this guy get his ass handed to him well of course you know we all know what happened we went downstairs and saw him win and he won on on family values he was winning with like, you know, Catholic, uh, Latinx people in Texas. It's like, wow, what,

how am I, am I in a fun house? How, what's going on? So we were so in despair and so outraged that we decided our next gig was in Winnipeg. So we left Chicago and we were like, we're not stopping in any red States. It's straight to Winnipeg,

but cheese curds, we had to stop for cheese curds in Wisconsin. Okay. Yeah, of course. Um, but it's funny when you look back now, um, cause I remember the W years,

and because there's a terrible, like, I believe, I got to go get it, like, a new current update on, there's a hurricane that's going to strike Louisiana. If it hasn't, isn't doing it as we speak, that might be bigger than Katrina. And I always think of, looking back, and I just think of Katrina because of how that administration, how awfully they handled

the disaster there in New Orleans. I always look back now as W sort of like, oh, he wasn't as bad as I remember because I'd take him over Trump. You know what I mean? He's one of the most eloquent modern statesmen. He paints, he's friends with Michelle Obama.

Like, oh, that guy. You're seeing clips of like, we can't tar all of our Muslim brothers with the same brush, you know. Right. Who the hell is this guy? Like, you know, it just shows you that

if the bar keeps going down, then eventually we'll be going, you know, Adolf Hitler. Yeah, he waved his hands a lot and stuff, but, you know. Yeah, what did they say about Il Duce or whatever? Like, the trains ran on time or something like that?

Yeah, the trains ran on time. He wasn't so-and-so, 48th president of the, we'll be comparing him to the 48th president of the United States. He wasn't as bad as that guy. Right. Oh, my God. Okay, so I do want to talk about the new Do Good Assassins, but that was a great convo because I got to talk to a bonafide, not only a rock star, but a professed socialist.

And I believe you are writing some of the best protest music, if you will, that's coming out of this awful era, the Trump years. Oh, thanks. It's always a difficult line to walk because I'm also very, very aware that in the 80s, I wrote some capital P sort of ham fisted capital P political songs. And it's like, that's what I've always wanted to avoid. You know, in the beginning of lowest to low, I learned that, you know, speaking about people's daily lives on the ground is just as political and sort of resonates in a maybe in a more honest way or something. Okay, what do you mean by the capital P political? What do you mean by that?

Well, you know, just if I was writing a song now and it was called Nine Minutes or whatever, if I were writing about George Floyd, was it Nine Minutes? Eight something? Eight Minutes. But I'm saying if I took whatever amount of minutes that was and that was the title of the song and it was all about George Floyd

and I mentioned George Floyd, and I said, you know, fascist pigs, and, you know, I'm just saying, like, capital P, where it's like everything is on the nose, everything is boom, boom, boom, that's what it is. Yes, that serves a purpose. It feels good to write that, and it is valuable. You know, fuck you, I won't do what you tell me.

But it's very easily, instantly mocked when 10,000 frat boys are yelling it back at you right so i'm just saying there's a you know to some degree i learned how to maybe nuance the my my more stringent politics into poetry of everyday life or however you want to say it right so i did that for a long time with lowest of the low and i you know and i feel like the politics were still in there and i'd still write a song about the spanish civil war or whatever but it wasn't i wasn't beating you over the head with it. And on Agipop,

I still don't feel like I'm beating you over the head, but I'm just getting closer to saying this is exactly what I think, you know? And do the other members of lowest of the low, uh, share your, uh, these,

these, these values and, uh, opinions and beliefs. And, uh, I, I think we're,

we're for sure. There's a spectrum because, uh, I would say that I'm much farther left than most of the guys in the band but we're all in the same world we all recognize each other politically there's no Trump supporters in the band that we should know about

not that I know of, we'll weed them out if there are I can't speak for the guest musicians we all respect each other I respect the hell out of those guys and their, their hearts and their emotions and where they are, their souls are good. And, and I'm not, you know, and also I'm not always, I'm, I'm at least 56 years old. I'm not convinced that I'm always right either. All these things are just what I feel like I've gleaned from looking at the world and what I feel like speaks to me in my heart and my compassion

for people but it doesn't mean that I'm right and I'm you know I certainly I one of the things I mentioned I had a conversation with somebody who's been in politics for a very long time and we were in far-left groups in the in the 80s together and I said you know the old forms of like the vanguard party leading a mass movement uh What I love about what's been happening in the United States is it seems to be a very ethereal, there is no leadership you can point to per se. It's just a mass of people who have had enough and who have, you know,

and the danger of that is maybe it's easier to water it down or to defeat it, but I don't think so. It's looking like it represents this ideal. That's grassroots, right? Yeah, and we've been shown that the sort of vanguard movement model has all kinds of dangers to it as well. I'm looking at you, Stalin. So I'm the first one to admit I'm wrong.

Probably my daughter is the first one to admit, well, maybe I'm not the first one to admit I'm wrong. Probably my daughter is the first one to admit I'm wrong. But I'm, you know, the seventh one, the seventh person to admit I'm wrong. Number seven, okay. Now, you know, you mentioned lowest to the low in Buffalo. I know from listeners, I think I picked up listeners in Buffalo because of my love of your band.

Like, I think that's how hardcore some of the Buffalo low fans are. Sure. Now, because you have that popularity in Buffalo, which, by the way, is an American city, love of your band. Like, I think that's how hardcore some of the Buffalo low fans are now because you have that popularity in Buffalo, which by the way, is it as an American city? And there, that would, I would assume now that would come with a certain percentage, maybe not the bulk, but there would be a certain percentage of, uh, Trump supporters in that, that mix. So when you did stop down on that, uh, Tommy Douglas Tuesday there, uh, did,

did anyone leave? Like, do you know, or was it? Oh yeah. Yeah. Okay. People down on that, uh, Tommy Douglas Tuesday there, uh, did, did anyone leave? Like, do you know, or was it? Oh yeah. Yeah. Okay. People left. Uh, I unfriended a lot of people. I had, I had some, uh, not, you know, I wouldn't say fights, but I had some good natured critiques from some of my liberal friends down there who said, you know, one of the things I've always loved about you is that yes, you have these far leftleft beliefs but you're willing to sit down and talk to anybody and to try and convince them and i said yeah and they one a person said to me you know he has a friend who's been like a 30 year lowest to the low fan and he was crushed to hear that because he doesn't consider himself a fascist or a cretin and he's the lowest of the low fan and he also

supports trump and i said well all i can say to that at this point is I'm sorry, but too bad. You know, I don't have anything. I don't have any words of encouragement to say to that person. And that's a shame. It's a terrible shame. And I don't like to lose fans or people who get what, you know, not fans even, but just people who get what we're doing. You know, you need every single one of them. So I'm sorry to lose one,

but that comes first to me. One thing though is that... Oh, sorry. And the other thing I want to say is we have lots of Republican friends down there and I have lots of Republican friends down there that are super smart and have great hearts and they're, you know, fiscal conservatives,

but they're, you know, socially not... Like they're okay if a man marries a man, essentially. They're fine, yeah. They're totally fine. And they believe a woman has the right, it's her body, she has a right to an abortion, a safe legal abortion. Yeah, and you know, and the funny thing is, I get into this with people too, is that I even understand,

I mean, if you're a Christian, like, and you are not pro-choice, I mean, I would sit down and talk to you about that because of what I believe. And I know that we're in, that's a territory that's very rife with, you know, I'm totally, myself, I'm totally pro-choice. But in my life with my partner,

it would be a hard decision. You know, it's tough on anybody. You'd be pro-choice and not want that for your, you know. Yeah. And I'm not a Christian. So I don't, I can't be in that mind of somebody who seriously believes that that is a human being at every part of that stage. You know, that's what some people clearly believe. And if they believe that, uh, then of course they believe that it's some kind of a sin to step into that role. And it's not our, it's God's, you know, I just disagree with them about that. And empirically, I think I could argue my point. But I don't, that alone, I don't think makes them a terrible person.

It makes them a person with different belief system than I have. And in my encounters with religious people, it's something that literally they're four years, I have a four-year-old daughter. Like if I start now to tell her every day, this is true. This is like when daddy tells you something regularly at four years old, you know, by the time she's 12 years old, like this is ingrained, like this is brainwashing, right? And then I've, I've, so she could be a socialist by 12. Right. I just got to start working on it tonight. I could have her socialist by 12, but when it comes to relay, I mean, I'm a lapsed Catholic. I, uh, but I can tell you, yeah, it's, uh, you don't really have, you don't even know

how to like think otherwise, because this is all you've been told by the people you trust the most in the world for your entire life. And it's almost like you have to almost like step back and say, okay, like if I were introduced to this today for the first time, what would I think? But a lot of people can't even do that. So I do know some smart, caring people who would be anti-choice because they're Catholic and they're literally told in church, come to the protest.

We're going to have pictures of fetuses on our play cards and all that stuff. So similarly, I understand in America, United States of America, I'm a Canadian like yourself, but in America, often it's a similar thing with whether you're Democrat or Republican. It feels like 45% of that country is born and raised on one side of those Republican or Democrat. And it's almost like you need to follow suit and elect vote for the candidates in this party, sort of like a religion. You know what I mean?

So I would imagine there's some low fans in Buffalo who I hate to say, but it doesn't matter to them. Who's got the R next to their name on the ballot. Like I vote Republican, like my parents did and like my grandparents did and like we've been doing since, I don't know, since Lincoln or whatever.

Well, yeah, I would say it goes the same for Democrats. There's a lot of people that can't, you know, they would just go, yeah. I think 45-45 and then you got the 10% who decide who's going to lead the country. So-called independence, yeah. Yeah, I don't know. I mean, look at both of the conventions.

You know, they have to end every single speech with God bless America. And it's like, what happened to the separation of church and state? And, you know, the thing is, getting back to these Christians who are anti-choice because of their belief system, you know, I'm sure that there are, you know, thousands upon thousands of very decent people who do great works in the world who just believe in God, and they believe these things, uh, to be true that I don't believe. Right. And they act upon, you know, they, they have the conviction, they act upon their convictions and that's honorable.

Um, it's people who use the front of it. It's somebody like Mike Pence who can call himself a Christian and then support Donald Trump who does, it doesn't do a single thing that could be. I mean, he's he probably breaks every single commandment. I haven't looked at the commandments recently. He's your family values candidate. Right. Which is insane.

Well, I'm assuming Mike Pence hasn't had a brain injury and isn't stupid. So he's making this choice on purpose because he knows that this horrible person will get things done in the world that he wants done right you know and a lot of that is uh you've got a very uh elderly uh ruth bader ginsburg uh and and if you're the leader when she passes hopefully she lives forever right but you know we don't live forever when she passes uh this not right this yeah uh ben rayner you know ben rayner of course uh big big fan of the aliens uh very big fan of the aliens okay so where am i going with this oh yeah yeah so that's the big thing for these evangelicals and everybody is they need they need that next supreme court justice person to be somebody who will take away a woman's right to an

abortion and you know and maybe even make same-sex marriage illegal and all these things that seem important to them. That's like, I think that's what it's all about. Like they just need their guy to do that when our RGB, our BG passes away. Yeah, exactly. Well, so yeah, so just to say, you know, people are complex. I've known countless socialists who are total assholes, you know,

and don't have anybody's interest in mind. I've known lots of, you know, one of the great stereotypes when I lived in Kensington Market is if you saw an elderly hippie, you always saw him talking to an 18-year-old woman, you know, and he was probably talking about feminism, but that's not really what it was about, you know. So there's wolves in sheep's clothing everywhere you go, you know, on the left, on the right, in religious movements. So how do you, being a lapsed Catholic, what is left to you, Mike? Like, what's left of the belief system of

Catholicism or Christianity? Is there anything in there? But I mean, I suspect that you believe that people should do unto others as they do. Okay. Well, that's the, if we call that the golden rule, that's pretty much my only rule. Like I treat, and I, whether you're the CEO of the company or the gentleman who's watering the plants in the lobby or whatever, like I treat you with the respect I would like.

I would treat everyone with the same respect and everyone gets the benefit of the doubt until you burn me. And then you get on the list or whatever, but I just treat everyone with respect in the way that I would like to be treated. And I mean, I got the four kids and one of them is off to university next month. And one of them is starting kindergarten

and the others are all in between. And none of them have been baptized. You know, there's no religion in their lives, but they are, you know, that 18-year-old man, James, my son, he's completely respectful and thoughtful and compassionate and just somebody I'd be proud to know, let alone say is my son. And it's all kind of based on that golden rule, I'd say. Yeah.

Well, that's honorable. I mean, to me, when I was probably 19 or 20, 21, I don't know how old I was, but I decided that I better read the Gospels and I better read the Koran and the Upanishads. I read a whole bunch of stuff because I thought, well, these are old books, old philosophy books, if I don't believe in the divinity of them.

And there are things in there that are important, and you separate the chaff from the... So you were raised with no religion? Yeah, I mean, I was raised, I was raised, you know, I'm doing air quotes now as a Protestant, but I mean, my parents never went to church. So not even like a Christmas and Easter thing? Church, I mean.

Santa? Are you talking about Santa? No, no, no. Because there were a lot of Catholics who went to church twice a year. Nothing for me, other than Sunday school for chocolate bars. By the way, how's your mom doing? I got the pleasure of meeting her once, and she seemed lovely.

And I know she does listen to Toronto Mic'd episodes when you're on. Like she did say, if you're on, she'll listen. Hi, Mom. She's probably listening right now. She's doing okay? Yeah, she's doing good. But yeah, I guess I was raised, I was not raised as an atheist. I was just raised with nobody talking about, you know, like my grandmother, they talked about going to church.

It was important for my grandmother to go to church, stuff like that. But I mean, it was never really a part of my life other than Sunday school, as I say, to get bribed with chocolate bars to go. And I would say that, you know, taking actually a stand on being an atheist would have come at 16, 17 when it normally does. And it stuck because I i don't see i don't see anything to change my view on that and i you know and i have to laugh about how for religious people that means you're just walking around the world sinning everywhere you can because there's no there's no penalty they're puzzled by it because like i uh i produce a podcast for ralph ben murgy it's called not that kind of rabbi and one time i was his guest and we spent an hour with him

really kind of baffled and prodding me and poking me and trying to find the spirituality within and the religious ties or whatever and it's kind of like it's almost difficult for him to understand how can there be nothing it's a little bit of a

I don't know if you ever listened to Russell Brand's podcast, Under the Skin. No, but I do like his stuff. He had Ricky Gervais on. Okay. And Ricky Gervais is famously an atheist. And there's some great back and forth between him and Stephen Colbert, who's a practicing Catholic. And that's a great thing because Stephen Colbert, very smart, very compassionate.

I respect him immensely. He's a full-on Catholic. And Ricky Gervais is not. And they have some great banter back and forth. But one thing that Ricky Gervais said with Russell Brand is Russell Brand said, you know, the idea that if you don't have God in your life, then, you know, you could just go out and do all the raping and pillaging you want. And Ricky Gervais said, I am doing all the raping and pillaging I want, which is none.

Bingo. Yeah. So he's like, it's, you know, and for me, again, what, what attracted me to socialism is, is almost a quasi religious idea of I'm not here by myself. I'm here with, you know, billions of other people and they're important. And on a, on a, on a compassionate level for my own soul, it's important, but also even as a even if you were a businessman, as a smart businessman, it makes sense that the society we live in will be more fun and more fulfilling to live in if everybody is doing well. I mean, I don't understand how that isn't super clear.

No, I'm with you. I'm with Ron. It would be less stabby. It would be less full of tears. I mean, it's just it would be a stabby it would be you know less full of tears I mean like it's just it would be a way better place to live for sure now I could actually talk to you about this stuff forever but I want to I do want to

talk about the new Do Good Assassins album my first yeah there's an album coming out tomorrow I want to talk about it first question is okay so when Ron Hawkins that's you by the way I'm going to talk about you like you're not here but when Ron Hawkins is writing like I envision you would have ideas i don't know do you have like a an actual notebook you write in like uh like when you're writing i'm gonna speak in the third person for the rest of the show well when ron hawkins is writing a song um no i i you know the thing is

the notebook thing i mean i used to like that's the shakespeare my butt thing is i used to always have a notebook and i would be walking around the city, and all of these, you know, just to say I felt like the protagonist in the film of my own life. And so I was almost like seeing myself from outside myself. Like you're on a streetcar, you're going downtown, and you're like, oh, I have this. Is that a thing? You know, and I'd write something down.

So I just had notebooks with little stuff everywhere that I could pull from, or maybe it would launch me onto a little journey. But since the advent of digital and all that kind of stuff, the way I tend to right now is just to sit in front of my computer with an acoustic guitar and often just I'm playing chords or sometimes I'll pull up like a drum loop. I have this big library of drum loops that I've literally just sort of stolen out of songs whenever the band isn't playing.

So there's like an Amy Winehouse one or a Public Enemy one or a Clash one or whatever. And I'll load it in and I'll just start jamming with this drummer, with Topper Hedden or, you know, whoever it might be. And sometimes ideas come out and I'm usually just sort of like yelling gibberish. And then at some point something like, like Peace and Quiet's a good example. I was just yelling gibberish and then I, and then I said Peace and Quiet in the way I say it in the song. And it was like, and then it was like, oh, what does that mean? And what, what could I say about that?

What does that mean to me? And what, what does Peace and Quiet mean? And then I start to sort of reverse engineer it a little bit. And then more gets fleshed out. And then as you're sculpting it, you know, it starts to tell, you know, like I always used to hate this when novelists would say, the book starts to tell you who it is and what the characters will tell you who they are. And I would go, oh my God, what a bunch of pretentious. Yes. Right. But I find that when I'm do this gibberish thing, which is that eventually when you have peace and quiet and you have a few ideas of it,

then it starts to be in a world and only a certain amount of things would make sense in that world. And it starts to. Okay. Now here's the big question from a longtime fan that's me by the way i'm going to talk about myself as well as mike mike has a question um okay so when you when you peace and quiet starting to formulate how do you decide like how do you say to you but where's that moment of like oh this is not a lowest of the low song or how do you know if it's a do-good assassin song a lowest of the low song or if it's going to be ron hawkins solo like what determines that uh well it's that's that's a multi multifaceted process too because I'm writing all the time right so it's like I'm writing songs I'm writing songs and I don't generally have somebody in mind

for it I'm just writing songs and then every now and then like a song will come up and I'll go well that is clearly a lowest of the low song there'll be a something in it and it does not necessarily that it's the style of Shakespeare in my butt or the style of sordid fiction it's just that oh that's the kind of that's the kind of you know suit that the lowest low wears and then it's like a couple things would be sort of like ah that's the do-good assassins jumpsuit you know the coveralls like that that makes sense and then sometimes it literally comes down to something as quotidian as hey who's around right now? You know,

and maybe it becomes a, if there's a bunch in a folder and it could even be like, there's a bunch in a folder. Lawrence is very, very clear with me about what he likes and what he dislikes about my songwriting. And there have been a, the odd song where it's that I've intended to maybe, Hey,

maybe it's on a low, slow record. He goes, I don't like this. You know, this isn't, you know, that's not good enough for you or that doesn't

and then that'll go into a different folder and it's not that I go oh Lawrence is right that's a subpar song it would just be that that doesn't fly you know whatever

and it goes over here and then maybe it becomes a solo song or if the Do Good Assassins are making a record and we've got seven songs oh hey what about this folder okay name check

excuse me for some people who think they just think Lois is a low because of Shakespeare my butt being all over our radios. Tell me, name check the members of Do Good Assassins. Okay, so the Do Good Assassins are myself. I'm playing guitar and vocals.

On drums, you have Jody Brumell, who people would know he played on the Spitz Butter and Sparkle record. And he is also, and our bass player is Lee Rose, who she was in a band called Rival Boys, and her and Jody are also in a band currently called Ace of Wands, which are fantastic. Spacey punk pop kind of stuff. Cool.

And then on the other guitar is the fabulous Stuart Cameron, who plays, he's sort of like a total guitar ninja. He can play anything. And you know, the amazing thing about Stuart is he's got chops out the wazoo and can play anything you want, but he also has the beautiful added ingredient, which is that he can just sit back and just, he serves the songs all the time, which is what, you know, a million guitar players who can noodle and are unbelievably talented, but can they reel it in as well, you know, a million guitar players who can doodle and are unbelievably talented. But can they reel it in as well, you know, when the song asks them to?

And Stuart's very, very, it's beautiful to play with him. Would the Do Good Assassins ever open for Lois at the Low? Yes, I believe that the Do Good Assassins Mach 1 may have opened for Lois at the Low somewhere. Maybe, I'm going to guess it was probably Buffalo but it always comes back to Buffalo and I know Lawrence and I

we got stuck in a situation where maybe the opening band fell out or something so Lawrence and I opened for the Lowest of the Low and at the end Lawrence was like wow

that was that was like climbing Mount Kilimanjaro I think Craig Northey told me a story about how the odds would open for the odds as a different band

oh yeah as a cover band right like yeah I. I think, yeah. Like as a cover band. Right, like, yeah. I've seen that happen. It's amazing. Yeah, which I thought was quite the move. Okay, so just let's get specific here. Tomorrow, the album, how do you say this?

246 or 246 or 246? There's three options there. How do you say the name of this album? I think it comes down to two options because it's called a Tascam 246. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Which is the machine machine the four-track cassette machine that we recorded it on so i tend to call it uh 246 but i know some people call it 246 okay but the tascam 246 uh four-track cassette recorder is was it yours like was that i had one in about 1985 uh 1984 even maybe and i used to write songs on it the first songs i was writing i was kind of demoing you know a couple of guitars and a vocal on them and stuff like that right so

it's very much hardwired as a romantic entry to my songwriting career and it has all the attachments and the you know all the mnemonic or whatever, like all the sort of, you know, it just speaks to me in a very romantic way. It transports me. So years and years and years of making records, and, you know, the record making has gotten very sophisticated in terms of, like, now that it's digital, there are infinite tracks.

I mean, you could record a song, you know, I think on Agipop, there are probably songs that have 95, 100 tracks on them. Right. And, you know, on some level level there's no need for that whatsoever because if you look back What are you using those tracks for? At some point don't you run out of different streams?

Part of it means that so now when you would mic like for instance making 246 we did it in Jody's living room so there's four inputs right so I have to capture the drums. So I had a separate mixer and there was like a mic on the kick drum, a mic on the snare and two overheads.

So that's four mics. And those were submixed to two tracks on the four track. And then bass was on three and Stuart's guitar was on four. And then I bounced that down and add my tracks. So we would get up to about seven or eight tracks. And this is a dumb question. I know you're a big Beatles fan because you've kicked out the jams with me and people should go back

and listen to Ron Hawkins kicking out the jams. But like, like the, we all, you know, Beatles, that was four track.

Like, so. Yeah. So, so this is what I'm saying. So that's four tracks of drums, right? So now when you have infinite tracks,

all it means is that you go to a big studio and there winds up being 36 mics on the drums. And that's because now they can have control over absolutely every aspect. The Tom mic has a mic on the top and on the bottom and that's because now they can have control over absolutely every aspect the tom mic has a mic on the top and on the bottom uh there's room mics there's other room mics and what winds up happening is half the time those far room mics and everything are muted it just it just leaves the mixer with all these options and what i what i loved about making 246 is that it brought me back to a time when there were no options the option the only option was your band better be

hella good and you better be able to play those songs and there better be soul aplenty coming out of it and then you you could capture that on on a four track okay so now this album uh you were working on this album before the pandemic right like so give me the give me the life cycle for uh 246 uh well it was done the sort of bed bed tracks part of it which is most of the song were done done in two sessions. And I think they were both done in Jody's living room. So you picture Jody's drum kit is in the corner, Lee is standing next to him,

and Stuart is standing next to her, and I'm in there as well. And the amps I had in another room to just get a little bit of separation so the drums weren't bleeding into those mics. Right. And so we're there, and Jody counts it in. There's no click track.

We didn't play to a click track. It's just humans making music. And that happened, I think, maybe a year and a half ago was the first session. And then the end of last year was the second session. And then I took those tracks and bounced them down and did my tracks at home in my little studio, which was vocals and my guitar. And then mixed it. And it was all mixed. You know, the whole idea was that it's all analog. There was no digital tomfoolery. I didn't auto tune anything. I didn't move anything around. I didn't edit anything digitally. And it all was mixed out through

outboard gear, which is for people who don't know, it means like old school tube based equalizers and compressors, not plugins inside a computer or anything. So nothing inside the computer was done. Okay. I, uh, now I want to ask you, uh,

this is like the, uh, the watching how the cake gets baked here. Cause I know you brought a guitar cause I'm looking at it right now. And, uh, if so I have, I did load up to,

I loaded up a teenage insurrection and and Heartbreak in Hopper Street. Like, I have those MP3 files loaded up here. Great. But you tell me, like, what would you like to do? Like, would you like to play something from the new album? Like, what are you feeling right now? Yeah, I mean, do we have time to play one from there? And maybe I'll play one live.

If you have the time, I have the time, yeah. Okay, so do you want like like if i forget how about this oh actually like so you need a little time to set up there obviously uh and i only have the one mic is that okay i think it always sounds good yeah you sound good so i want to thank some partners of the show uh can socialists that's okay if i'm a socialist perspective like it's all about partnering right okay and by the way that's a just-got-delivered frozen meat lasagna that you're bringing home with you today. Nice.

And that's from Palma Pasta. And take home the beer, too. Fresh craft beer. Literally just picked it up from Great Lakes Brewery. So that's yours. And if you like, you can start getting ready and stuff. I'll thank the rest of the partners. And then which song, after I thank some partners of Toronto Mike's,

would you rather I play Teenage Insurrection or Heartbreak in Hopper Street? What do you feel like? Teenage Insurrection is sort of a garage rock ode to that energy of being a teenager and trying to keep that energy all your life where you're ready to hit the street. Sold. Okay, so that's what we're going to do. Sure. Okay.

You do your thing and I will chat up the people and do your thing. Yeah. Do your thing, rockstar. And I'll thank everybody else who helped fuel the real talk. And that honestly, that conversation of Ron Hawkins, that's,

that's real talk. I love it. StickerU.com. They've been a great partner of Toronto Mike. You can go to stickeru.com for your stickers and decals and such I want to thank Austin Keitner

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to 9759 or write her at barb at cdntechnologies.com and again, garbageday.com slash Toronto Mike is where you download Garbage Day for curbside collection notifications. It's fun. It's free. And I'm going to play a little Teenage Insurrection here as Ron gets ready to play live.

That's on tape. Oh, what? You're recording? One, two. I guess your default disposition is don't want to know An act of surgical precision just to make it so Cause there's a natural selection We're chained to the world Just like a teenage insurrection It's inevitable Yeah, garage rock. Nice and noisy.

I love it. And I love that we got a nice wind here for the performance in my backyard. If you can't go to concerts now, just bring the concerts to yourself here. So let me fade out your excellent teenage insurrection here, Ron Hawkins and the Do Good Assassins. Okay, so I only have the one mic, and it's already rocking, so take it away, Ron Hawkins. Are we hearing that?

Okay, so this would be the, you know, there's a lot of that kind of thing going on, Teenage Interaction, a lot of sort of garage rock-y stuff happening. But there's also a lot of sort of a little more airy, sophisticated recording going on there as well. This is one of them, sort of a ballad like this called Love is a Poison Thing. Love is a poison thing

The sweetest I will sting A joker And a king Well Love is A tragedy A theater Of cruelty

And you got that Front row seat both the actors on free on a stage lost at sea and the run's been extended

indefinitely Hail, hail vanity Love is a bitter curse You know there's nothing worse Than the last free man on earth. When love is a guillotine, better hope that blade is clean. Because the end comes quick and mean But the peasants shade their eyes And they wrestle in the line

To see our fair fallen bloody valentine So save yourself time Save yourself if nothing else Save yourself from all that heartache

cause love is a genocide The enemy's inside So there's nowhere to hide Well, love is a murder scene Some psychopathic dream A guilty guilty plea

But it's lethal and sweet So we rinse and repeat Oh that same chalky outline on the street Love is a

poison thing Love is a poison thing Love is a poison thing. Love is a poison thing. Ballad. Amazing. Yeah, beautiful. Beautiful.

Thank you. You talented mother effer. Well, here's a good, that's a good example of a song that I brought. And Lawrence was like, he's like, it's so bleak. Every verse is more bleak than the next verse. And I said, did you get to the last verse? And he's like, no.

He's like, when you said love is a genocide, he's like, you know, I was out. And I was like, all right. I said, but I kind of, you know, I thought I resolved it at the end. It's lethal and sweet, so you rinse and repeat. So Lawrence, he's like, all right. I said, but I kind of, you know, I thought I resolved it at the end. It's lethal and sweet, so you rinse and repeat. So Lawrence is the, he's like the gatekeeper, right? Yeah, I guess.

I guess he's one of the gatekeepers. I mean, I do have a bit of a philosophy that, you know, everybody has to like the songs on the record. And if there's something they don't really want to do, I mean, I guess if I was a less prolific songwriter, I might be more pushy about it. But given that I write a lot of songs, it's like, you know, okay,

that goes in this folder over here. Ron, thanks so much, man. You know what song's going to play us out, don't you? You might be familiar with it, but... Oh, it's a Weddings, Parties, Anything cover. Yeah, we did that last time. Oh, yeah, last time we covered that, right? Absolutely.

Right, that's right. Oh, yeah, last time we covered that, right? Absolutely. Right. That's right. Ron, honestly, I'm going to have you over once a week if that's okay. You okay with that? Yeah, for sure. Pandemic, wind, rain, shine, virus. We actually avoided the rain. That's pretty good luck right there.

So thanks again for dropping by, my friend. The new album, again, it's coming out tomorrow. Yep. And where would you like to direct people to? Like what website? Well, because of COVID, there are no physical copies right now. There will be, I'm hoping in the new year when we can go play shows and stuff. So right now it's a digital release only. You can get it at ronhawkins.com. That's

a great place to get it because you'll also get the booklet and the credits and all that stuff. It's also available on Bandcamp. And it's available on iTunes and everywhere else you can get it. But go to ronhawkins.com. ronhawkins.com. And that brings us to the end of our 713th show. You can follow me on Twitter.

I'm at Toronto Mike. Now, Ron's not on Twitter, but I do know Lowest of the Low are on Twitter. Lowest of the Low. And the Do Good Assassins are on Twitter. Is it at Do Good Assassins? I think so. I think it's at Do Good Ass Ass 1. Okay, find it.

I've been tagging them. It's an unfortunate short name. Our friends at Great Lakes Brewery are at Great Lakes Beer. Palma Pasta is at Palma Pasta. Sticker U is at Sticker U. The Kytner Group are at The Kytner Group. CDN Technologies are at CD Lakes Beer. Palma Pasta is at Palma Pasta. Sticker U is at Sticker U. The Keitner Group are at The Keitner Group. CDN Technologies

are at CDN Technologies. Getting all choked up here. Pumpkins After Dark are at Pumpkins Dark. And Garbage Day are at GarbageDay.com slash Toronto Mike. We're actually going to do this again.

Not Ron Hawkins, unfortunately. He'll be at Ontario Place tonight. So go see him there. But I will be doing a Pandemic Friday episode of Stew Stone and Cam Gordon in this backyard at 5.30 today, so come back for that. And to take you out, as always, 713 times, is a little ditty from Shakespeare My Butt,

the man who wrote the song. Great guest. Thanks again. We'll have him back. See you all later today this podcast has been produced by tmds and accelerated by roam phone roam phone brings you the most reliable virtual phone service to run your business and protect your home number from unwanted calls. Visit RoamPhone.ca to get started. doesn't realize there's a thousand shades of gray cause I know that's true

yes I do I know it's true